Naked
by jaro'pickles
Summary: Not in a dirty sense! Songfic on Avril Lavigne's song by the same title. About Kel and her mask. R&R please. KelDom.


**Naked - and not in a dirty sense!**

It's 12:53am and I have to type quietly so my mother doesn't come and investigate, I also had to switch the light off so my dog could sleep so I'm making mistakes, and typing quietly isn't helping.  
Anyway, **A Little Like Love** was bugging me, what with it being massively full of OOC-ness, so i decided to do a quick songfic to clear my mind. Stop reading my rabble and read below.

**DISCLAIMER: The song is Naked, by Avril Lavigne. The characters are Ms Tamora Pierce's.**

* * *

_I wake up in the morning  
__Put on my face  
__The one that's gunna get me  
__Through another day  
__Doesn't really matter  
__How I feel inside  
__This life is like a game sometimes_

Some mornings Kel woke up scared. The war was over, what was a young knight to do? There was still immortals hanging around, but that was the type of stuff the Own and the Riders took care of. She'd been pulled off commanding at New Hope, and visited occasionally, but she wasn't permanently assigned anywhere, and she hated that.

Neal spent most of his time reading; Kel spent her time in the practice courts, all the while wearing her mask, unable to show her friends how she really felt about their inactivity.

_Then you came around me  
__The walls just disappeared  
__Nothing to surround me  
__Keep me from my fears  
__I'm unprotected  
__See how I've opened up  
__You've made me trust_

And then Third Company returned.  
"The King's thinks we've been out long enough. He's ordered Raoul to keep us in for at least a month," Dom grinned when he told her.  
Kel smiled, she _was_ glad Dom was back, she hadn't seen him in over three months, but she was scared. Dom had always been able to see through her mask, and she wondered if he'd be able to tell there was something wrong.

Dom spent a lot of time with Kel, on the practice courts and off, slowly coaxing her out of her shell, gently pulling down her protective walls until she confided in him.

_Coz I__'ve never felt like this before  
__I'm naked around you  
__Does it show?  
__You see right through me  
__And I can't hide  
__I'm naked around you  
__And it feels so right_

Always, she had been able to slide her Yamani façade into place and hide her emotions from the world, but now, when Dom was around, no matter how hard she tried, he could see through it. He could tell how she felt, and she was glad, because in a way, she had been silently crying out for someone to tell her to stop hiding behind her mask. She wanted someone to hold her, to let her know it was okay to show her feelings, but she hadn't known how to say it.

_I'm trying to remember  
__Why I was afraid  
__To be myself and let the  
__Covers fall away  
__G__uess I never had someone like you  
__To help me fit__ in my skin_

She still used the mask sometimes, when she was really angry, or sad, or ashamed. But Dom had convinced her she didn't need it, he had convinced her she was strong without it.  
Kel knew that showing your feelings was considered a weakness and a disgrace in the Yamani Islands, but she was in Tortall, where people wore there emotions on their sleeves, available for anyone to look upon.

_I__'ve never felt like this before  
__I'm naked around you  
__Does it show?  
__You see right though me  
__And I can't hide  
__I'm naked around you  
__And it feels so right_

Kel was happy. She still had nothing to do as a knight, but she knew there would be work for her someday soon, and she was still happy.

"Kel, you don't need to hide behind a mask to be strong. You can be strong without it, showing your feelings is not a weakness. Being able to let people know how you feel is a strength because you're letting them in, letting them help," Dom had told her one night by her fireside. Kel had nodded slowly, not really understanding why her friends would want to help her.  
"They'd want to help because they love you. I love you," Dom read her perfectly.

_I'm naked around you  
__Does it show?  
__I'm naked around you_

_I'm so naked around you  
__And I can't hide  
__You're gunna see right through, baby._

_**Avril Lavigne, Naked.**_


End file.
